Migrating from traditional on-premises infrastructure to cloud-based architectures offers endless benefits to businesses. But some are still hesitant to fully embrace the Cloud for all mission-critical applications – fearing a loss of control, and the potential for downtime.

OpenStack has emerged as one of the most popular cloud computing platforms, allowing organisations to easily build and scale next-generation applications in an open source environment.

OpenStack enables organisations to bring to life concepts like Agile development, DevOps, experience design, and data-driven thinking. As companies compete in the frenzied world of rapid digitisation, having the right cloud-based platform is essential to success.

But until now, it hasn’t fully satisfied every concern among risk-averse technology and business leaders.

The final pieces in the puzzle are finally falling into place. F5’s latest batch of new components – including the open source LBaaS V2 plugin code, a Heat plugin library, and Heat templates – eliminate any concerns from those hesitant to embrace the OpenStack.

These latest application delivery services guarantee the levels of performance, availability, and security that top companies demand. They increase the visibility of system performance, across every contour of your business.

“To become a truly agile and responsive business, and to rapidly bring new digital services to your customers, you need absolute faith in the resilience of your Cloud applications,” notes Anton Jacobsz, managing director of South Africa’s leading value-added distributor, Networks Unlimited.

“The release of these F5 features should mark the inflexion point for open source cloud adoption in corporate SA. The advantages of the cloud are now so compelling, and the potential drawbacks so negligible, that very few organisations will persist with traditional approaches.”

Looking at the innovations in more technical detail: the open source LBaaS V2 plugin code allows developers to adapt the load balancing service to suit their specific needs, via direct plugin to GitHub, and integration with various tools and systems. The Heat plugin library and Heat templates give organisations far greater confidence to deploy a broader range of apps on the OpenStack platform, robustly, securely, and without impacting existing applications.

Jacobsz adds that “the OpenStack landscape is maturing and professionalising at an incredible rate. Its most recent user survey showed that 60 percent of application deployments on OpenStack are now in live production, compared to 32 percent just two years ago.”

“Transforming your business requires more than just an in-principle decision to migrate to hosted Cloud environments. It means making careful decisions about the design and development of your new cloud platform”.

“By taking an open source path – such as OpenStack – you’re accessing a vibrant community offering a rapidly-expanding set of modules, tools, and plugins. Pulling these into your applications means that your IT estate is continuously renewing and improving”.